THE TEMPTATION OF EVE

"Humanity's Loss"

"The Original Sin Construct"

Art research by Phillip Bowen

Written research by Phillip Bowen and Max Lichtor

The Temptation of Eve - "Humanity's Loss" aka "The Original Sin Construct" is thought to have been created in the mid to late 13th Century by an anonymous European alchemist who wrote books on metallurgy, in Latin, under the pen name of "Geber". In 2010, limner artist Phillip Bowen contacted Pyramid-Gallery with information discovered from a commission he received from Chester Cathedral, the mother church of the Church of England.  The cathedral was formally a Benedictine monastery known as St Werburgh's abbey. Chester Cathedral Mr. Bowen was part of a team of illuminators hired to translate and reproduce a series of large scale diagrams based on illustrations of cube art found in a number of alchemical writings discovered during a renovation of the cathedral's upper library in 2002.  These treatises had not been seen for centuries. They are thought to date back to the time of St Werburgh's abbey (mid 16th Century), where they were first cataloged, hidden and stored for safekeeping during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1541.

Cube art discovered among alchemical writings during
the renovation of Chester Cathedral's upper library (2002)

Photo copy courtesy of NG Industries, 2013

Geber-Jabir

For many centuries, European scholars assumed that Geber was identical to the 8th Century Islamic alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan and that the books had been translated from Arabic.  The term "gibberish" arose as a reference to the incomprehensible technical jargon often used by Jabir and other alchemists who followed after him.  (see also: Jibber-Jabber )

Modern day scholars have since assigned the author of these Latin works the title "Pseudo-Geber" (false Geber).  Some have theorized that Psuedo-Geber's real identity was a 13th century Franciscan alchemist and author from southern Italy by the name Paul of Taranto.

Paul of Taranto

Paul of Taranto forcefully argued that true alchemists could indeed use their knowledge of metals to affect real transmutations in nature. Alchemy, as a form of human art or technology, was capable of successfully imitating or even surpassing nature.  In 1317, Pope John XXII condemned alchemists who "promise that which they do not produce." This was a backlash against Paul of Taranto's claim of power over human nature by metals.

Hugues de Payens First Grand Master of the Order of the Temple

A metal that held an significant place in Pseudo Geber's lexicon of alchemical properties was the “Black Stone”.  This artifact was secretly excavated from under the temple mount of Jerusalem in 1127 by nine Poor Knights of the Order of the Temple of Jerusalem.  Their leader was the first Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, Hugues de Payens. This black stone (Shiva Lingam), “a substance of perfect order”, was believed to hold the power of transmuting lead to gold, simultaneously allowing humanity to overcome the third dimensional chaos of flesh.  Instructions for this process were written in Sanskrit on ancient Vedic scrolls which contained the alchemical secrets of the Shiva Lingam.  Alongside the black stone was a portable miniature Indonesian altar, cataloged in the Vedic scrolls as “The Elegy Yantra – The Chains of Verekna.” Hugues de Payens brought the treasures back to Europe where they were studied, always at the cost of the life of an Initiate Knight who the Grand Master selected to perform the transmutation ritual.  These failed bloody rituals secretly continued for well over a century under the command of twenty successive Grand Masters. In 1259, Grand Master Thomas Bérard appointed the task of recreating this “cursed Yantra” to the young Franciscan alchemist Paul of Taranto.  The Temptation of Eve - "Humanity's Loss" was the alchemist's first creation.

The Lingering Choice (left panel) The symbol of Eve with the incarnation of Lucifer under the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  To either side, the sigils of the warrior angels Gabriel and Danyiel who cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. The City of Dis Gateway (right panel) Sigils of the warrior angels, warning  infernal damnation upon the box's manipulator. "I am the way to the city of weeping.  I am the way to eternal grief.  I am the way to the people of the lost.  Abandon all hope those who enter."

The Judgement of Ultimate Intellect (left panel) The nine circles represent the nine circles of the Inferno surrounding the bindu of Lucifer, the fallen star, the symbol of the sins of humanity.

Pyriel Genocide (left panel) The pyramid represents the bodies of those fallen in the first angelic war in heaven.  The symbol of the "fiery and pitiless" angel Pyriel tops the pyramid while the sun rises behind it.

Extract from the alchemist's journal, 1261:

“I have studied the Elegy Yantra for almost two years now.  What this box bestows is trully ungodly.  I plan to produce my own puzzles, commissioned by the Templar Knights to whom I will honour God's wrath and divinity.  My first creation, The Temptation of Eve, will be my infernal masterkey. It will seek out an individual sin that is strongest in the soul of the manipulator and take them to the designated circle of the Inferno.  My configurations will not serve the Black Diamond and its mutilated jailers.  I serve the angels of heaven and the demons of the inferno.  Man will not judge me for what I am about to do. Only God and Lucifer!”